Saturday, March 5, 2016

Stubs - The Lion in Winter (1968)

The
Lion in Winter (1968) Starring: Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony
Hopkins, John Castle, Nigel Terry, Timothy Dalton. Directed by Anthony Harvey. Screenplay
by James Goldman. Based on the play, The Lion in Winter by James Goldman.
Produced by Martin Poll. Run Time: 135 minutes. U.K. Color. History, Drama

If you think you have a dysfunctional family,
spend Christmas with Henry Plantagenet’s and you’ll truly appreciate how normal
yours seems by comparison. That seems to be the point of The Lion in Winter, a
historical drama starring Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn. Based on the
play by the same name, which premiered at the Ambassador Theater on Broadway on
March 3, 1966, the film is an example of historical fiction.

In 1183, King
Henry II of England (Peter O’Toole) summons his estranged wife, Eleanor of
Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), whom he has imprisoned for 10 years in Salisbury
Tower for her part in civil wars and plots against him. Henry has called a
Christmas Court at Chinon Castle to determine which of their three surviving
sons, Richard (Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle), or John (Nigel Terry), will be named successor to the crown. At 50, Henry figures he is near the end
of his life and with the death of his heir, the Young King Henry, earlier during
the year, the decision on succession requires immediate attention. (The film
avoids the fact that Young Henry was killed during the course of a campaign in
the Limousin against his father and his brother Richard. It was common at the
time for the heir apparent to be crowned during the reign of the Senior King,
so as to avoid issues of succession.)

Also present are
Henry's mistress, Princess Alais [pronounced like Alice] (Jane Merrow), who has
been promised as wife to the new heir, and her 18-year-old brother, Philip
(Timothy Dalton), the King of France. Alais, who was raised by Eleanor as her
daughter has grown into her 23 year-old replacement for Henry’s affections.
Philip is there to settle the treaty that lead to his sister’s betrothal. He
demands that if she is not to marry the heir, the treaty will be nullified and
lands given to Henry would be returned to France.

Jane Merrow plays Princess Alais. She is both promised to the king
of France and is also the object of King Henry's (Peter O'Toole) affections.

Henry, who
proves to be more impulsive than decisive, chooses John as his successor. John
is portrayed as a spoilt boy of 16, who is probably afraid of his own shadow.
Alais makes no effort to hide her displeasure with marrying John, whom, she
remarks, smells like compost.

Anthony Hopkins plays the eldest of the three sons, Richard.

Eleanor, fully
aware that Henry doesn’t really care about any of his three sons, proclaims
that the throne rightfully belongs to the eldest, Richard. Almost immediately,
everyone plots to attain their own selfish ends: Eleanor offers to yield Aquitaine
to Henry if Richard is named heir. [Not explained in the film, Aquitaine is a
region of France which Eleanor originally ruled as Duchess. In 1137, she
married Louis VII of France and possession passed to France. However, the
marriage was annulled 1152 and when she married Henry II in 1154, Aquitaine
became an English possession. It would remain one until 1453 when it was
annexed by France at the conclusion of the Hundred Years’ War. Because of her
annulled marriage to his father, Eleanor is also the step-mother to Philip.] Geoffrey,
a typical middle child who is neglected by both parents, conspires with John
and Philip to rob Richard of the throne. Henry, meanwhile, confesses to Alais
that he intends to get his way without giving her up.

Eleanor conspires with her sons, here pictured Richard and John (Nigel
Terry), to ally with the King of France against Henry.

Eleanor and her
sons decide that an alliance with the King of France might solve all their
problems, and Eleanor sends Richard to convince Philip of the merit of their
cause. But he is beaten to the punch by Geoffrey and John, who have come
looking for an army to back John on the throne and Geoffrey as his Chancellor. While
they hide, Richard comes into the Philip’s chamber, where a previous homosexual
affair is recalled and Philip, just as he had done to John and Geoffrey,
promises to support Richard.

Richard hides
behind a tapestry when Henry arrives to continue his negotiations with Philip
about settling the treaty. Thinking he has won the negotiations, Henry starts
to leave, but Philip stops him. The youthful French king has disdain for his
own father, but more for Henry and with a certain amount of glee he exposes the
homosexual bent of Richard, the treachery of Geoffrey, and the disloyalty of
John.

Timothy Dalton plays Philip, the young King of France, who has his own priorities in negotiations.

Outraged, Henry
disowns his sons on the spot and demands an annulment from Eleanor, declaring his
intentions to marry Alais and father a new heir with her. When he plans to go
to Rome to get the pope to annul the marriage, she threatens him with a
rebellion while he’s gone. To avoid that, he decides to imprison his sons in
the castle’s dungeon while he’s out of the country. But Alais insists that
Henry execute his sons to protect any child she might bear him.

Intent on
carrying out her wishes, Henry descends to the dungeon, but Eleanor gets there
first and arms the three princes with knives to aide their escape. But Richard
refuses to run. Henry, with Alais, arrives and gets into a knife fight with his
sons. All of them are shown to be afraid. When John makes an ill-advised lunge
at his father, he is easily wrestled to the ground and has a knife at his
throat. But Henry doesn’t kill him.

However, he
pulls out his sword and declares that all three are to be put to death. But
when he raises his sword over Richard's head, he can’t bring himself to go
through with it and the three sons make their escape. Left alone, Eleanor and
Henry, adversaries, realize that there is a bond between them that is too
strong to be broken by a struggle for power.

Christmas morning,
with nothing resolved, Henry escorts Eleanor to the barge that will return her
to prison.

Sadly, that sort
of sums up the film; nothing is resolved. Sometimes hard to follow, after two
and a quarter hours we’re sort of back to square one. While there is some very
good dialogue spoken (this was originally a play after all) and the acting is
very good, Hepburn would win one of her Academy Awards for Best Actress for her
role as Eleanor, the film was overall dissatisfying. Perhaps a more intimate
knowledge of peerage and an encyclopedic knowledge of English history would
have helped going in. Things are not explained in the film and sometimes events
become confusing to the unknowledgeable amongst us.

While all of the characters really existed,
some of the plot points are fictional. I am no English history scholar, but I
have found out about some of the fictionalized history involved. The play and the
movie take place during Christmas (much of it taking place Christmas Eve into Christmas
morning) at Henry II’s castle in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, [which is in
modern day France]. There wasn’t a Christmas Court at Chinon that year. And
there is no evidence that Alais was Henry’s mistress, though Richard would use
it as a reason to resist marrying her.

Henry would live another six years, dying, no
surprise, after a battle with Philip and Richard, who had joined forces. After
surrendering and capitulating to their demands, Henry returned to Chinon where
John publicly sided with Richard in the conflict. The shock and a fever led to
Henry II’s death on July 6, 1189. Son Richard, aka Richard the Lionhearted,
succeeded him to the throne.

Peter O’Toole, who became a major film star
six years earlier in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), plays Henry II for the second
time, having first played the part in Beckett (1964). O’Toole, who was known as
much for his drinking as his acting, gave many memorable performances in such
films as The Ruling Class (1972), Man of La Mancha (1972), The Stunt Man
(1980), My Favorite Year (1982) and Venus (2006). He died in December 2013.

Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in The Lion in Winter.

Katharine Hepburn was an American treasure. Once
considered box-office poison, Hepburn would have a film career that lasted from
A Bill of Divorcement (1932) until Love Affair (1994). She would be nominated
12 times for the Academy’s Best Actress Award, winning it four times. In
addition to The Lion in Winter, she would win for her performances in Morning
Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner (1967) and On Golden Pond (1981).
She is perhaps best known for her on screen chemistry and off screen romance
with the married Spencer Tracy. They would appear together in Woman of the Year
(1942), Keeper of the Flame (1942), Without Love (1945), The Sea of Grass
(1947), State of the Union (1948), Adam’s Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), Desk
Set (1957) and Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.

Of the three sons, Anthony Hopkins shines as
Richard, a brave knight/mommy’s boy. Hopkins was a relative newcomer to films
in 1968 as Lion in Winter was only his second film appearance. He had been
acting since appearing on stage in the Swansea Little Theatre’s production of
Have a Cigarette (1960). Perhaps best known for his Academy Award winning
performance as Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) as well
as its sequel Hannibal (2001), Hopkins is still working today appearing in such
films as Thor (2011), Hitchcock (2012), Red 2 (2013), Thor: The Dark World(2013) and Noah (2014).

Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton in The Lion in Winter.

And I would remiss if I didn’t mention future
James Bond star, Timothy Dalton, as Prince Philip in his first film appearance.
He would appear twice as the British secret agent in such films as The Living
Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989).

I will admit that before I watched The Lion
in Winter, I had some reservations. For some reason, I always thought Hepburn
was too old for O’Toole, but she is actually about the right age for the part.
Eleanor was supposed to be older than Henry II, 59 to his 50, Hepburn was 60
when she made this film.

But having watched the film, my criticism is
that there doesn’t seem to be a point to the story. The issues it presents are
either left unresolved or are forgotten altogether. For all I know Prince
Philip is still in his chamber with more people hiding behind the tapestries.

I also didn’t like the musical score, even
though it too won the Academy Award. The vocal stylings which permeate the
score don’t seem to fit with the time the film is set in and I found that somewhat
jarring. Not as bad as say a rock-themed
soundtrack might have been, but rather than setting a mood, it had the opposite
effect and took me out of the film. You can tell this is a 60’s movie with the
occasional jump cut and jolting transitions. And Jane Merrow’s Alais has a very
sixties, dare I say it, hippie look to her. Perhaps what is really old was new
again.

While I’m pleased that I finally saw the
movie, I feel like it was more a required history course rather than an
elective. This is one course I’m glad I don’t have to take again.